Thursday, October 29, 2015

A few
days ago, Bernie Sanders appeared for an hour on Charlie Rose.The Vermont Senator who has gained traction
among potential Democratic primary voters, including many young people, calls
himself a Socialist-Democrat.Regardless
of labels his classic progressive views differ hardly at all from people
like me.Indeed, what struck me in
watching their conversation was just how compatible our positions.Bernie supports universal Medicare, free
public university, infrastructure investment, public financing of political
campaigns, reinstatement of Glass Steagall, breaking up too-big-to-fail banks
and aggressive action to combat climate change.So do I.

It isn’t
only the gap between the 1% and everyone else that animates him, but also how the
system — political and otherwise — is rigged to keep that disparity in
place.Further enabled by Koch brothers (whom he repeatedly mentioned by name) and other billionaire money, that
system is broken.Bernie Sanders is equally disturbed by the media’s focus on polls, gaffs of the day and the like
rather than on the substantive issues that should and are not being
covered.To him, the Rose interview,
focused on real issues, was a refreshing exception.Again, I agree.

Bernie
is clearly frustrated with the state of our democracy and its inequities.In that, he reflects an unease writ large.But Sanders’ anger, while certainly echoing this
widespread frustration, is grounded in the positive idea that we can do
better.He wants us to live up to our
exceptionalism, not the kind that says we’re superior to others, but the one
that reflects our special and innovative national character.Some think Bernie is the Democratic version
of Trump and other “outsiders” seen on the Republican side.Nothing could be further than the truth. For one, he is a long sitting Senator.But more important, as I’ve written before,
they voice the anger of constituents who feel disenfranchised from an assumed
entitlement, a controlling place at the table.Theirs is a rejection of the “Other”.Some among them also perceive an existential challenge to their conservative Christian
beliefs and ways.Bernie isn’t
that.He may be angry but, if anything,
it is against the very idea of exclusiveness.Bernie is inclusive.Unlike
theirs, his quest has had a positive effect on both the discourse and country.

While
struck by the commonality of our views, I nonetheless remain mindful that
campaigning and governing are not the same.Perhaps that’s why, despite a powerful message and a passionate loyal
following, he remains substantially behind in the measures that make for a
nomination — polls, endorsements and, his unquestioned successes
notwithstanding, money.Unless something
still unforeseen presents itself, Hillary will likely prevail.Presidents, as Barack Obama has learned, have
a significant role in setting the agenda and certainly in proposing, but
ultimately it is the legislative branch that disposes.All the things that Sanders would like to
accomplish take Congressional action.His laundry list is bold, and rightly so, but getting even a portion of
it enacted (especially with a House that may remain in GOP hands) is a very
tall order.

In the
first debate, Secretary Clinton summed up the difference that probably accounts
for her still commanding lead.She described herself as “a progressive who
likes to get things done”.I may find
myself more closely aligned with Sanders’ overall views, but know moving ahead
will require pragmatic skills that may not be uppermost in his toolbox.What I do feel, more so than at the start, is
that his candidacy and vigorous voice have had a major impact on the direction
of both the campaign and his party.Hillary’s
self-description as a “progressive” is in itself something new. More important, her current positions lend
substance to that claim.Some may say
she was forced to the left, but I like to believe that Bernie and others gave
her license be there.Whatever the
reason, there is a minimal difference between them on most key issues.She may be late, as he rightly points out,
but that she has come to the present place makes me more hopeful.

This is
going to be a critical election.The difference
between the parties has never been greater.Bernie Sanders, along with colleagues like Elizabeth Warren, have helped
change the narrative by clearly articulating the goals to which Democrats
should aspire in this second decade of the twenty-first century.Those goals are catching up to what many of
us have long thought they should be.He
may not win the nomination, but he certainly deserves our great respect and thanks.Bernie has made a difference.

Monday, October 26, 2015

The
first President Bush is old and he is frustrated.His beloved Jeb is struggling when early
money gathering suggested a possible sail to the nomination.But what really gets to him is the state of
the party with which his family has been closely associated since father
Prescott was elected senator from Connecticut in 1952.At this point Bush is somewhat relieved —
getting old at the right time — that he won’t have to witness where it all
ends.He’s clearly not optimistic.I’d venture that the former president is not
alone in that regard.Many of his age
look at what’s become of our politics, the chaos abroad, widespread economic
imbalance and endangering climate change with equal unease.Perhaps more than then, they can truly relate
to the title of Anthony
Newley’s 1960s musical: Stop the
World: I Want to Get Off.

Of
course, the fact that the Stop the World idea
resonated more than five decades ago — albeit on more on a personal level for
Newley’s “Littlechap” character — should give us some comfort.Others before us have witnessed frustrating
times and somehow humanity muddled through, even thrived.That may be reassuring, but it doesn’t
exactly make one feel sanguine about our time.The vast majority of the world’s population has most of their lives
ahead of them.Political and perhaps more
so ethnic/religious turf strife is bound to be with us for some time to come. 2015 is expected to be the hottest
year on record, likely by some margin.Just days ago we had the strongest hurricane ever recorded in our
hemisphere.Fortunately, mountains
quickly broke it up, but it was a stark reminder that storms are likely to
increase in ferocity going forward.If
we don’t take immediate and drastic action to slow things down, which seems
unlikely, most people alive today will be living with resultant destruction, not
to mention, among others, increasingly limited water and food supply.

Part of
the ugliness that troubles President Bush was on display last week as Hillary
Clinton faced what Maureen Dowd described
as, “a bunch of pasty-faced, nasty-tongued white men”.To call this fact-finding would be a
disservice to an important part of Congressional duty. Theirs was a classic witch-hunt, one that expressed
the state of our disunion.Couple that with the contest of essentially
same-page rightist candidates — none would be measurably better than the other
— and you can see what puts the former chief executive on edge. Of course we shouldn’t forget that the Bush
clan played a significant role in heading the party in its current
direction.He appointed Clarence Thomas,
perhaps the most reliable rightist member of the current Supreme Court.His son followed on with Roberts and Alito not
to mention quagmire wars we can’t shed, affluent-tilted tax cuts and a
resultant ballooned deficit.

It’s
that deficit that has become the clarion call and primary justification for his party’s
relentless attempt to gut and thus weaken, if not destroy, the federal
government.If I were prone to conspiracy
thinking, which I’m not, it wouldn’t be far fetched to suggest that putting what
has become a deficit tool in place
was his intended objective.He may not have been quite that calculating.As to Jeb,
we all know that he is not his grandfather’s New England moderate Republican — Prescott Bush was, yes,
an early and active supporter of Planned
Parenthood and the United Negro
College Fund. The current pretender
to the family throne ran Florida as a consistent doctrinaire
conservative.Perhaps the only exception
was immigration, but he’s surely backed off from that as well.

In the
end, I’m not really sure what’s bothering George HW Bush, the former number two
to conservative ultra-hero Ronald Reagan.
It may be that the road on which they set the party has taken a much
further right turn the two hoped or expected.
Perhaps. But it may be something
entirely different. Prescott Bush was a
patrician of the banker moneyed class.
His son and grandsons may have relocated to Texas and Florida, but
Kennebunkport remains the locus of their family togetherness. However far they all may have moved to the right,
that money class connection remains a constant.
Their people have been the “establishment” that somehow steered
presidential nominations toward candidates of their liking, ones who could
function within their orbit. Perhaps the
former president is as much, if not more, dismayed by the potential erosion of
that establishment control than of the ideological turn that, after all, can be seen as a
natural progression. So, what he would rather not witness is a loss of power that, when
held, trumps all else.

Many
Democrats may feel similarly if not equally dismayed.Somehow we’ve always looked at this
“establishment” as a tempering force, one that keeps the crazies at bay.But truth be told, that sense of restraint
may be more in our own minds — talking to ourselves — than is merited.George W, John McCain and Mitt Romney were
all establishment choices.More to the
point, the establishment blessed the elder Bush who, even before appointing Thomas,
embraced Lee Atwater, the model of the take-no-prisoners campaigning that wrought
the Tea Party and brought its “Freedom Caucus” to life.Perhaps the current crop of Republican office
holders like to pay lip service to the “Gipper”, but their ways can be equally
credited to the post 1988 Bush clan.George HW Bush's establishment gang may be losing its grip, but when all
is said and done, it makes no substantive difference.He may say he is “getting old at the right
time”, but the political trouble he will leave behind is in large measure the harvest of
his own planting.

Monday, October 19, 2015

It seems
that with every presidential election cycle we hear that, “this is the most
important election we’ve ever had”.Having
been said so often in recent years that may be seen as “crying wolf”, something
to be ignored. Yet once again, I find
myself not merely wanting to say but to shout, “this is the most important
election ever”.Why is that so?The simple answer is that the major parties
have become so distinct from one another that elections do matter more than
before. Make no mistake; the country’s future
direction will be on next November’s ballot. There will be consequences.

Consider
the drama currently playing out on Capital Hill and, most especially, the
dysfunction in recent years.No, it
isn’t that we have a president of one party and a congress of the other.That has happened often, including in fairly recent
history.What makes this time different
is that the two parties who were once distinguishable only at the margin — both
had a range of opinion and philosophy within — are now more sharply ideologically
divided than they have been in many years, certainly in our memory.And ideology is the right word, especially on the Republican side.The GOP has moved hard right. The current House speakership battle is all
about institutionalizing that shift.

The shift
— transforming the Republican Party into the “Conservative Party” — has been
building for years with Tea-driven primary voters systematically turning out non-conforming
office holders.That there is a question
about Paul Ryan’s conservative bona fides (what else is he) or whether the 2016
presidential wannabes are sufficiently pure tells you all you need to
know.The only fly in their ointment is
the continuing interference of the “money class” which has been in control for
so long, and still weighs heavily.Office
seekers want their financial support, but seem to be pushing back against the
attached strings. That tension continues, especially relative to the
presidential contest, the race that still counts the most.

The
contrast between Republican and Democratic presidential debates couldn’t have
been sharper.Beyond the obvious, that
one party has a clear front-runner and the other has a contest that remains in
flux, the ideological divide was as conspicuous as I’ve seen it.Democrats and Republicans don’t’ simply
differ on approaches to national security, education, healthcare, voting rights,
gun control and economic/tax policy; they often hold diametrically opposed
positions, seeing life and the country through totally different eyes.If FDR, who faced similar political forces in
the 1940s, was known as “the happy warrior”, today’s Republicans seem wedded,
as David
Remnick put it in the New Yorker, to “the politics of perpetual fear”.

When I
moved to North Carolina just nine plus years ago, Democrats controlled the
governor’s chair and legislature.Today,
Republicans hold both.The change has
been dramatic with, for example, huge cuts to both public schools and higher
education. The UNC system, long regarded
as a national model, is now being starved of cash and deeply politicized; the
state ranks close to the bottom in public school teacher pay and support.The legislature has made a systematic effort
to suppress voting, especially among minorities and university students
(assumed Democratic voters) under the guise of preventing non-existent voter fraud.Thanks
in part to the Supreme Court essentially gutting the Voting Rights act, this is
happening all over the South.

North
Carolina changed hands and it had consequences.Certainly it mattered from where I sit as a liberal.George W. Bush was elected president and it
mattered — taxes were cut, deficit ballooned, Wall Street went wild and we got
ourselves into two major wars with disastrous outcomes.Perhaps more consequential, we got the
conservative business-friendly Roberts Court.Barack Obama was elected and that too had consequences.We averted a potential depression, saw our
economy (albeit selectively) recover and got the Affordable Care Act.We began the long and messy process of
unwinding ourselves from unwinnable conflicts, though that remains an elusive
and unresolved struggle.Perhaps most
important, we finally began to seriously address climate change and saw
two liberal women jurists join the Court.

With the
Republican hard right turn something has also happened to Democrats — the beginnings of a notable contrary shift left. Bernie
Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are manifestations of that, but they only reflect
a more widespread reaction to the harsh realities and consequences of present
day conservatism.The turn left was the
big take away from last week’s debate, one in which long time centrist Hillary
Clinton, embraced the progressive label.That was in sharp contrast to her husband’s preaching back in 1992.His approach to besting Republicans was to offer
a complementary Democratic approach, tokened by “ending welfare as we know
it”.That ultimately led, among others, to
the repeal of Glass Steagall, a landmark of the party’s New Deal years.Such centrism is out of sync with today’s
party, which seeks to keep this progressive generation of young people along
with women, African Americans, Latinos and other immigrants under its
tent.Gun control wasn’t only on the
table in Las Vegas; it was vigorously supported.That alone speaks to the great divide.

Republicans
have long advocated limited government.Now,
as they’ve moved to the far right, their agenda seems aimed at choking off any
government at all — except of course when their state faces a disaster or perhaps
wants its endangered waterfront properties rebuilt with taxpayer funds.It’s hard to observe Republican “rule” on the
Hill without coming to the conclusion that they truly want to immobilize
government — read that “Democrat government” — altogether, the consequences be
damned.That has taken us from brink to brink.

But, as
others have pointed out, this obstructionism is transparently clear.The cries for smaller or no government really
are intentionally targeted at the disadvantaged not the affluent and more
specifically at programs or activities with which they disagree.As Hillary
Clinton said during the debate, “They don’t mind having big government to
interfere with a woman’s right to choose and to try to take down Planned
Parenthood.” She continued, “We should not be paralyzed by the Republicans and
their constant refrain, ‘big government this, big government that.’ ” Simply
put, their ideological commitment to smaller government, not to mention deficit
reduction is, generously put, highly selective.

Perhaps watching
disarray in the House, some Democrats are happily projecting its advantageous impact
on 2016.Hold your glee.For one thing, problems on the Hill rarely,
if ever, predict how a presidential election goes. That you or I may think the
GOP majority members are acting like buffoons doesn’t mean that others —
especially their constituents in heavily gerrymandered districts — agree.More importantly, who becomes Speaker won’t
really factor into who is elected president.What happens in Parliament might determine who becomes Prime Minister in
the UK, but we have an altogether different system.Presidential candidates, the Electoral
College notwithstanding, face a national electorate.Separation of Powers is more than just a mode
of governance.That’s precisely why we
can have a Democrat in the White House and Republicans in control of
Congress.So, while we certainly have to
look at the presidential race in some larger political context there are
limits.

The
outcome of the election ahead, as always, will depend in large measure on the two
party nominees and how they stand up against each other.And let’s not forget the nuts and bolts
mechanics of gaining votes — the effectiveness of the ground operation and
access to sufficient money.How voters
feel about the current president and if they think eight years of a Democrat in
the job is enough is likely to play as well. But this year, it is possible that the more
clearly defined differences between Democrats and Republicans will mater eve more.I hope so.In that regard, there may be no more important long-term issue at hand
than the balance of power on the Supreme Court.Yes, the Court may matter more to our future than the wars overseas or
the economy at home. The next president
is likely to have multiple appointments to make.That really will have long term consequences.

Monday, October 5, 2015

I keep
waiting for an uptick in Hillary Clinton’s standing and, indeed, campaign.That Bernie Sanders nearly matched her fund
raising in the recent quarter only underscores the “frontrunner’s” (and our) problematic
prospects for success next November. By
the way, I get solicitation emails from Bernie daily, none from Clinton.
Reports of attempts to reposition and humanize herself are ominously
reminiscent of Al Gore’s wardrobe adjustments in 2000.They didn’t alter our perception of him as being
wankishly wooden and distant; only solidified it.While Gore still edged Bush out in the
national popular vote, his thin margin enabled Florida and what followed.We paid a high price.

There is
a difference here of course.Gore’s big problems
came in the General; Clinton’s face her (and us) in the still early primary
season.If she isn’t able to overcome these
challenges, there is still time for an alternative.Most of the negative noise around her
candidacy is focused on the still mystifying email fiasco.But I think focusing on that is to ignore her
much more fundamental problem.Interestingly, it’s one that we’re seeing played out most dramatically
in the Republican contest and only recently being given
attention on the Democratic side.As
it happens, it is precisely the same issue that proved Hillary’s undoing in
2008 — dissatisfaction with the ruling political class. Obama represented
something different.She tried to
undermine his candidacy by stressing his inexperience failing to understand
that not being from the tried and true
was exactly what made him so attractive.

The last six plus years should tell us that talking change and making
change are two entirely different things.It turns out that presidents — all presidents — are more captives of the
Oval Office than its masters.The ship
of state is bulky and complex, more cumbersome than nimble. It’s hard, if not impossible, to get one’s hands
on the tiller to say nothing of turning the vessel’s direction to any
appreciable degree.Obama calls democracy
“messy”, but that’s a gross understatement, especially in our time.However one assesses his presidency — I view it very positively — we continue to find ourselves more
frustrated than satisfied.For
Republicans that feeling may be intensified because they don’t hold the White
House, but that’s an elusion.Holding
office, as Obama himself has discovered, is not the issue, not enough.That said, and elusion notwithstanding, there
is great frustration across the land, and its ultimately pan-partisan.

Hillary
Clinton’s problem is not her use of emails.It’s not stylistic or likability.It certainly isn’t a lack of capability or qualifications for office —
few on either side can match hers.More
than anything, it’s her last name, not so much Clinton per se but as a marker
for the established and failed status quo.Like Jeb Bush she doesn’t only carry the name burden, but more the
feeling of déjà vu — “been there, done
that”.Regardless of the Clinton/Bush
records and how they are perceived, we simply don’t want a replay, a repeat of
the past.Reports that, concerned for
her situation, Bill is getting more involved only reinforces that feeling.Hillary’s fundamental problem is that, with
all the good that she brings to the table, she may simply be the wrong
candidate for the time.In any event,
she may be perceived so, which in politics is all that matters.

Bernie
Sanders’ appeal thus far sends a clear message.An unlikely challenger for reasons I’ve discussed in earlier posts, his
candidacy nonetheless screams, “we’ve had enough”.Does that translate, whoever wins, into the
potential of a substantively different kind of presidency post 2016?Don’t count on it.Again, consider Obama’s tenure.But that may be irrelevant.We the
people are feeling powerless and want to stir things around, turn them
upside down.We may not be thinking
objectively — who really is the most qualified and supports policies with the
greatest chance of success.In this
cycle, it’s the visceral that counts — just throw the bums out.That’s what drove the Tea’s and continues to
give them so much leverage in their own party.Their rightist ideology may represent the fringe, be seen to some of us
as abhorrent, but their frustration is broadly shared.

Bernie
Sanders is not the solution. Given what I’m saying, much as I like him, neither is Joe
Biden.The resultant vacuum is a huge
problem for Democrats, and I think for the country.At the moment, Martin O’Malley hasn’t made
even a first impression, which suggests he may not be right either, or up to
the task.We need someone else, someone
who fits the time and, in my view, we absolutely need a woman.It’s long overdue to break through that glass
ceiling, not to mention have someone who, in their person, represents the
majority of our citizens.Of course it
has to be the right woman, a qualified leader.At the moment, the only individual who fits that profile may be Elizabeth
Warren.She has said no, but we can’t
accept that answer.We need and real
alternative.We need one now.

Warren
is in the senate, but remains a new face, apart from the establishment that
Americans are resisting.She sees income
inequality as the priority issue it is, understanding that many of our
corporations (not only banks) have become far too big and not only because they
pose great risk in failure.Perhaps most
compelling is that Warren is a serious person, the right candidate for serious
complex times.Sloganizing and trite
showmanship won’t cut it in the real world.Despite all the simplistic tough talk from Republican candidates — Carly
Fiorina’s eagerness to deploy our troops and arms everywhere makes John McCain
look like a pacifist — Obama has read us correctly. We have no stomach for boots on the ground interventions.But remote and surrogate warfare is, like
change, easier said than done.Drones
pose huge moral issues and thus far our “training” of locals to fight their
own battles has met with little success.We look at all that, critique the
failed execution, but don’t seriously or objectively address its
implications for our role in the world.I think we’re afraid of what such a discussion would reveal and where it
might lead.

It’s
hard the envy the next president and at times truly frightening to think of who
might end up in that job.But there is
little doubt that we need the right person — right also for our time.We need someone who can seriously lead us
forward and I don’t yet see that person on the campaign trail.Elizabeth Warren might be the one, and we can
only hope she is thinking about it and reconsidering a run.

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About Me

A branding consultant with decades of experience working with large global clients and brands, he now serves primarily young startup companies. Beginning his professional life as a rabbi of a large urban congregation, he has watched the numbers of the religiously unaffiliated grow in the years since leaving the pulpit. His book, Transcenders: Living beyond religion and the religion wars (available on Amazon) considers this phenomenon. Beyond his consulting practice Prinz spends much of his time writing, including this Blog. He posts to "Beyond All That" only when there is something to say that might add value to the conversation.